What is your opinion of Cathe's STS 2.0?

[Vintage VFer]

I didn't order this as I was waiting for the dust/lovefest to settle.

The series has been out long enough for opinions to be formed.

Pros and cons?

[Lannette]

Hi Alta,

Discs 11-15 and the full body workouts were worth the price of the set for me.

My absolute favorite is the standing core warm-up and Core plus Floor that use weight plates. They’re on Disc 15 abs. I could do them every day but Cathe says you shouldn’t.

I also really like active recovery & Stretch (disc 11), mobility (disc 12), foam rolling (disc 13), Yoga (disc 14)

Of the workouts, my favorites are all three total body workouts then the UB & LB workouts.

I didn’t really connect with the single body part workouts but I used premixes so maybe the full workouts would have appealed more.

I’d like to eventually try one of the rotations that pairs STS2.0 with one of the other Cathe series but don’t know when that might happen.

[Pam61]

My favorites were all of the strength workouts (Total Bodies, Uppers and Lowers, Individual Body Parts.) I also really enjoyed the Ab & Core workouts. I also liked both Mobility workouts, Total Body Stretch and both Yoga workouts (though preferred Mat Yoga to Chair Yoga.)

Least favorite was the Active Recovery workout. And, I was a little meh about the Foam Rolling workouts. These were all too short. I wish Cathe had taken a little more time and thought with these. They could have been better.

I did the 90 day rotation and loved it all, though. For the first month I followed the rotation to a T. But, in the 2nd month I began adding more (non-Cathe) yoga and felt more prepped and less sore. I was doing Cathe's Strength workouts in conjunction with yoga, so it was much longer/time spent than I would probably do on a 2nd round of STS 2.0.

By the 3rd month, I really could see physical changes and still felt excited to be doing the workouts and getting stronger. But, in that 3rd month you're doing mostly Individual Body Parts, which equates to you not getting your HR up as much with the Total Bodies or even the Split Sessions. I felt like I needed to do the entire workout (no shorter premixes) to keep seeing results. Were I to do this rotation again (and I will) I'd loosen up a bit and use some of the shorter premixes, when needed.

Other than wishing Cathe had a little bit longer cool down and stretch, I was very pleased with this set! It's one of my favorites of hers. I loved the variety of equipment and I was never bored or unmotivated. Cathe is the best cheerleader.

I would be interested to mix it with another of her sets, or just add some cardio at least in the 3rd month.

Also, I thought I wouldn't like working Individual Body Parts, but I loved the focus and concentration and variety of attention given to one muscle. It's not something I do on a regular basis.

[Kathy G]

I did three weeks of Giant Sets, Super Sets, and TriSets. These were great! The premixes on all the dvds have good options for either timesaver, segment remixes, or longer workouts (some have bonus exercises).

After I did three weeks of Upper Body 1 & 2 and Lower Body 1 & 2. This phase used the bands and barbell more but she always had the backgrounders doing different options so you could choose to do one of those instead (dumbbells or barbells instead of bands, etc). These were also very well done and awesome!

Then I only did the Body Parts phase two weeks. I did one week with the complete workouts and one week as splits using the premixes. I liked this option too because each body part felt worked out but it only took 45-50 minutes to finish. I will probably continue to mix these the same way next time because I enjoyed it that way.

I only did the Total Body Stretch and some of the ab workouts. I really enjoyed them and need to do more!

My overall opinion of STS 2.0 is that it is a very thorough and well thought out program. The rest periods between sets, the pace, and the sequencing was perfect. No feeling rushed or too fatigued to do the next set.

The three Lower Body Workouts are my favorites. Classic heavier weight workouts that have variety mixed in but every exercise hit specific areas (quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves). And the pace was just right.

It’s a big thumbs up for me! I plan to do a longer rotation later this year.

[red1013]

The only cons for me are the short stretches at the end of the workouts, and the foam rolling workouts.

I don't like having to put in a different disc to stretch, and while I love the total body stretch, at more than 20 minutes I don't always want to do that long of a stretch.

I've never done foam rolling before and I didn't really like it. I don't think it's necessarily Cathe's workout as much as my personal preference.

As for the strength work, my favorites are the total body workouts, followed by single body parts, then the upper/lower splits. But I don't think there's a dud in the bunch.

[prettyinpink]

I did the 10 week rotation with a few changes in the last four weeks (the individual parts workouts). I enjoyed it and I anticipate using some of the workouts here and there in the future. I doubt I will do one of the full rotations again, at least not soon, just because there are other ways of approaching strength that I like a little better, and I don’t mind not having a video to follow.

I neither gained nor lost significant strength. I thought maybe I would gain a little strength and/or hypertrophy in the upper body, since this program is higher in volume than what I am used to doing for upper body. But definitely did not gain strength, and I look the same. I guess I would have to push a lot harder for many more months to change my upper body much more, at least at home with dumbbells and without heavy barbell/rack/spotter, if I even could, and since I don’t enjoy regularly doing that much isolation work, I’m now satisfied that I know what I *don’t* want to spend my workout time on, at least not the way I did in this rotation. So it was a good experiment for me.

I added a lighter leg/glute day almost every week, and 85% of my “cardio” was just lots of easy to moderate walking.

The recovery workouts are just okay to me.

The program arrived at just the right time to get me out of a motivation rut, and the workouts are solid, so overall it was a big win for me.

I forgot to add when I first posted, that if I were to just buy a few of the workouts, hands down I would go for the upper lower splits. I really liked these.

[AnMrsDe]

I consider STS 2.0 Cathe's BEST strength series to date. I absolutely loved it...I thought there would be way too much downtime between sets but the pacing is perfect and I liked it much better than the original STS.

The total body workouts were my favorite (found some GREAT premixes too), followed by the Body Parts and the Upper/Lower Splits. I liked the LB workouts much better than the UB workouts.

The standing abs workouts were really great warm ups done before the strength workouts which worked well for me to get in abs before so I wasn't dreading them as add-ons after the main workout. Her Mobility workouts were very good but I didn't care much for the stretches/yoga, which I surmised since I'm not a fan of Cathe's yoga. I added on a 10-15 min. Mady Morrison stretch after the workouts often which stretched me out more for my present issues.

I loosely followed Cathe's LIS/STS 2.0 rotation but replaced the LIS workouts with my speed walks usually done 3x/week and added in various other mobility and yoga add-ons which helped balance everything out too. (And I need to note I'm sure I wouldn't have received such good results without including some type of cardio--my body demands it)! I got noticeably stronger and shaved off some inches, mostly in the LB, but that may have been reflected from my walks also. I should note here too that I used my Weider machine (incorporating pull downs) very regularly with this series which helped with my strength gains as well. However, I feel like I may need to do more for my upper body to gain more definition, but it's tough to go so heavy with wrist/shoulder issues! Thankfully, my 2# wrist weights were staples in my workouts to take it up just 2# where I could!

I think it's the combination of weights and bands and recovery that make this series so awesome to keep the muscles guessing and balanced. I really didn't get that dread factor at all since there is so much variety in the series. By the end of the 12 weeks, though, I was ready to move on to something and someone else.

Great series and highly recommend!

[cataddict]

I don’t think my dust has settled! I am not fond of the recovery workouts, but I am not a fan of yoga TBH. I didn’t think a lot of the foam roller “workouts” and probably won’t do them again. My favorites of the strength workouts were the total body ones. I didn’t do one of Cathe’s rotations, but I’m thinking when I circle back to these I will try one, as long as it has some cardio in it. So in general I am glad I purchased it. It is worth it to me since the price was very good even if I don’t do a few of them again.

Pros: price, variety of options for use of all or part of the set
Cons: user guide was rushed and there are lots of errors; won’t use all of the DVDs

[pgun3]

I have only just started STS 2.0 but I do like the full body workouts so far the only con on those for me is the length. I hate long workouts but the pace is good to keep going.

I do not like the active recovery dvds, too short and I cannot do yoga. My gut gets in the way, I am not very flexible and I have WEAK wrists and a torn labrum in my hip!

I am doing the 8 week rotation as I have NEVER done a rotation because my attention span is not that long. I am doing cardio on recovery days and I really should do a stretch workout on those days too.

[Vintage VFer]

Thanks for the input, everyone! I might pick up some of these workouts in the future.